NYTimes.com Article: Report Says Minorities Receive Lower Quality Health Care

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Report Says Minorities Receive Lower Quality Health Care

March 20, 2002

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Filed at 2:36 p.m. ET

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Whether it's a heart bypass, cancer

surgery or pain management, minorities do not get as good

health care as whites, the Institute of Medicine concludes.

``We weren't unaware of disparities, but we were surprised

at the depth and breadth of the evidence,'' Dr. Alan

, chairman of the committee that did the study, said

Wednesday.

``Disparities in the health care delivered to racial and

ethnic minorities are real and are associated with worse

outcomes in many cases, which is unacceptable,'' he said.

The report was welcomed by Dr. Lucille , president of

the National Medical Association, which represents minority

physicians.

``It validates what many of us in the NMA have been saying

for so long -- that racism is a major culprit in the mix of

health disparities and has had a devastating impact on

African-Americans,'' she said.

To Dr. R. of the University of Michigan, the

report was ``a wake-up call for every health care

professional. We have a health care system that is the

pride of the world, but this report documents that the

playing field is not even.''

, a retired physician and current consultant to the

American College of Physicians-American Society of Internal

Medicine in Washington, said the challenge now is finding

ways to eliminate these differences.

The report, prepared at the request of Congress, is not the

first study to reach this conclusion. As recently as

January, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

reported that, while Americans made advances in the 1990s

against a broad range of diseases, racial and ethnic

disparities remain.

Among the examples in the new report:

--A study of nearly

11,000 patients with lung cancer found that 76 percent of

whites and 64 percent of blacks had surgery. After five

years the survival rate was 26 percent for blacks and 34

percent for whites.

--A report on more than 13,000 heart patients found that

for every 100 white patients who had a procedure to clear

the heart artery, only 74 blacks did.

--Among 15,578 people who sought care in an urban emergency

room, blacks were 1.5 times more likely to be denied

authorization by their managed-care providers.

The report said the differences exist even when insurance,

income, age and the severity of the disease are the same

for both groups.

The committee recommended changing health insurance

programs to reduce disparities among economic groups and

setting up education programs to increase health care

providers' awareness of the problem.

Other recommendations included recruiting more minorities

into health care, expanding patient education programs and

improving enforcement of laws against discrimination.

The National Academy of Sciences is an independent

organization chartered by Congress to provide advice to the

government on scientific topics.

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On the Net:

National Academy of Sciences:

http://www.nas.edu

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